The Sugar Bar

Some long overdue photos.

The weather here has been somewhat crazy. Terribly hot and muggy and then suddenly, we are plagued (it’s a good thing really I just think that for others, many do not welcome the rain) with days of unceasing relentless rain. Doing the laundry gets a little tricky for most. I’ve seen lots of women queueing at the laundromat for the dryers with bright blue baskets of washing. My sisters have been complaining that the air is getting more chilly and the nights are nippy. By my standard, I really do not feel it. It just feels a little less oppressive and I hope the air stays that way. I don’t mind the rain (other than it annoys my hair a little) as long as our neighbourhood doesn’t flood. Because now that, is a whole different predicament altogether.

When I was in Kyoto in June, it was raining quite a bit as well. Hence, it just sprung into mind that I should upload some of the shots taken there. A little warm it was, a little rainy some of the days in Kyoto. Honestly, the weather then is exactly the same as what we’re experiencing now. Funnily enough, the weather makes me crave for soba ~ cold soba, hot soba whatever. It’s a need. So I dug up these pictures of handmade soba I had in Arashiyama. It was really lush, and fresh, soft but firm and well-made. The dipping sauce for mine and the broth for my pal’s was really delish. Oh how I wish I were there now again, slurping soba on the top floor of a tiny crooked shop with a (somewhat blocked but chilled out) view of the river.

The shop has a lovely, quaint, shadowy upper floor with just a few tables. The ones that are by the window facing the river are quite sought after since you can see the Togetsu Bridge on the left stretching over the river. We were lucky to get 2 spaces next to some salarymen who were quite so busy slurping their soba they didn’t even notice us arriving and noisily shoving ourselves into our seats. It took my friend Mr. Patience (yes that’s his real name) quite some time and effort to fold his lanky long BFG body into the little cranny of a space, obviously designed and built to comfortably seat the Japanese male/female physique.

A lovely rest stop. Fantastic handmade soba, good view, wonderful service, not to mention lovely ceramic cups/bowls/etc. that are also for sale just under the stairs next to the till.

It might seem a little hard to find but look out for its brown exteriors on the right footpath if you’re walking towards the river. You’ll notice a little zen stone garden once past the doors. You’re there.

Yoshimura
2 Togetsukyo Kitazumenishi
Arashiyama, Ukyo-ku

http://www.arashiyama-yoshimura.com

11am-5pm Daily

*ps. Around this area, you might spot geisha…or rather, women who pay to dress up like geisha. I was tempted. Truly. Which girl doesn’t like to get all decked up in shiny silk stuff and have their faces painted!

I know I’m not putting up posts for my Kyoto Snaps series fast enough and hope that isn’t disappointing or frustrating anyone too much. Too many things to do too little time running around like a busy White Rabbit with a stopwatch running to and fro back and forth on unending run-on sentences. YIKES. In the meantime, here’s a post I’ve wanted to share for some time too even before I flew off to Kyoto. Talk about taking backward steps.

I was invited to brunch at Brasserie Wolf which had newly opened a weekend brunch menu since a change in their head chef. I’d never been but from the pictures of its interiors, I was going ‘yes yes yes!’ in my head. Almost baroque, decadent with plush interiors and soft lighting, dark woods brought to life with white tablecloths, glistening table setting and pneumatic powdery peach-coloured leather seats – this looked and smelt every bit of Frenchness. A splattering of casualness amidst a canvas of elegance, even the waiting staff were long-limbed and modelesque, serving food with measured steps and gestures and definitely not without an extension of some friendly banter. You were just completely swallowed into their seemingly pretentious interiors but welcomed with warm smiles and attentiveness. I really loved the leather seats, especially these that extended far larger than your body. It makes me feel like royalty. And you sorta do a little in Brasserie Wolf. Even the al fresco seats are quite lush with cushions with an almost Moroccan feel to it, facing the river and such.

On to the food, I was quite impressed. The servings were just right for ladies although if you were hungrier, you might’ve had to order more. These dishes also came after a coffee that was very flavourful. I was very pleased to have sweetened it with a brown sugar cube. You know I have a thing for sugar cubes. They are just so much more quaint!

What came first was the Croque Monsieur. I sometimes have the cheap renditions of this French deliciousness from local bakeries – yellow with heavy fat which can sometimes make me feel just a bit sick to the stomach. Or back in my college days, I never went a week without a grilled cheese sandwich made glorious in a dirty (doubt this was cleaned in years) banged up toastie-maker. So of course, the French know how to make the simplest of things the most royal and give it funky names like Croque Monsiuer oh that’s just precious! This was light, savoury, crispy and almost disappeared on your tongue, disintegrating into a melted mass of ham, emmental cheese and buttery fried bread. It went so quick, I could’ve easily swallowed another. Whole.

A croque monsieur with a fried or poached egg on the top, by the way, is quirkily known as a Croque Madame. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fertility of females. Nonetheless, Brasserie Wolf serves them too and here, they look quite pretty don’t they?

There is not a brunch that goes without Eggs Benedict or some variation, at least for me. I say eggs benedict, we eat benedict. Here, we have Eggs Royale for a change. And I do love the names of these dishes. It just makes me think of similar sounding phrases like Battle Royale and Blood Royale. I mean, that’s just cool. Right? Delicious this was, with a fantastic hollandaise garnished with shaved black truffle. Casual.

On the sweet end of things, we spooned up some Bircher Muesli into our mouths. It never seems quite worth it to order bircher muesli for brunch when you can make this stuff (sometimes tasting even better and fresher) than that you get from bistros and cafés. But something in me just needs to taste the bircher of others, kinda like a self-induced competition I’ve got going on. I quite liked Brasserie Wolf’s bircher muesli although it was a tad too sweet for my liking. Nonetheless, it was impressive and generous with their ingredients!

We also had the Brioche Toast which was lovely, thick and sweet. Although I didn’t get a photograph of the Charcuterie Platter, it is well worth a mention. I was quite addicted to it as there was lamb prosciutto, air-dried beef, chorizo (lovely!), bayonne ham and saucisson on there. Lots of flavour and so moreish and nicely alternated with salad leaves, olives and sundried tomatoes.

This was probably one of the more stylish brunches I’ve had. Although it was still a very casual weekend setting, there was just something about the food, the decor and the service that upped this a tiny bit. Kinda like a touch of gold and that will be yet another story to tell in a few posts to come.

Brasserie Wolf
80 Mohamed Sultan Road
The Pier at Robertson #01-13
Singapore 239013
Tel: 6835 7818
brasserie@esmirada.com

I think I have completely mastered the art of indulgence. It involves zero baking of my own, merely getting up at a fairly late hour mid-morning, throwing some roomy clothes on, slapping on a decent amount of concealer and makeup, a taxi ride and voila. It is the Life of Brunching. Maybe it’s the change of lifestyle ever since I moved which is a little more hectic and fast-paced now, but such indulgences (trust me they don’t happen that often) feel utterly well-deserved and I’d equate the relaxing qualities of good brunches and quality time spent with girlfriends to that of a holiday. The works. Enough said.

Just last weekend, I discovered something so glorious it had to be shared. Or rather, everyone had to have a mug each because it was ironically too good to share. Graze mocha – refer to photo above. Thick, creamy and rich; more chocolatey than most, this was so decadently good an opening to brunch. It was hard to stop after 3 gulps and put this mug down. I know I shall be craving mugs of these on cold rainy nights.

As soon as conversation started flowing (no doubt lubricated by mocha), the dishes started arriving. I loved that they all looked so simple, honest and homemade, exactly how breakfast food should be! Clean, fresh and sort of understated on medium-sized white plates.

Spanish Omelette

This was by far my favourite dish of the day. The Spanish omelette was delicious with bits of chorizo and mushrooms, topped with fresh rocket and seasoned new potatoes that gave a little sweet citrusy tinge to it all. Those little spuds really made my day, whatever they were seasoned with!

Signature Cast Iron Pan – two scrambled free-range eggs, hash browns, bacon, chipolata, baked beans, roast vine tomatoes and mushrooms

A beautiful dish to behold with that rustic feel to it. I think we girls were a sucker for the cast iron dish anyhow, considering one of us had a little cocotte (imported from France) in her handbag. I hate to admit that this resembled dirty fry-ups with my housemates on Sunday morn. It wouldn’t be fair (to Graze) to do a comparison because I mean the latter had a real variety of ingredients, better execution of the dish, baked beans that did not come out of a can and it tasted delicious. But there were similarities for sure – the whole concept of a fry-up. Graze had just upped their game, polished their shoes you know.

Eggs Benedict – two poached eggs served on brioche toast with hollandaise and two slices of mortadella

This probably wasn’t as good as the eggs I had in a recent brunch trip. The eggs were slightly over-poached and it lacked that impressive oozing waterfall of molten yolk when attacked with a knife though the mortadella was quite scrummy. It didn’t have that swollen body poached eggs tend to have, a slight wobbliness and inability to contain its insides not unlike a huge badass blister under your skin, angrily threatening to explode (wow that’s a gross analogy but you get the idea right that sort of precarious balance between a whole egg and a poached egg come undone). I wasn’t sure why the hollandaise had been browned on the top as though it had been set under a grill for a few seconds.

Scottish Smoked Salmon Bagel with Cream Cheese, Dill and Rocket

Toasted seeded bagel – now that’s something hard to find in Singapore. This was lovely and the smoked salmon has to be mentioned. WONDERFUL! Very flavourful and not at all bland like some smoked salmon can be.

Savoury aside, we come to what we saved our tastebuds for.

Old Fashioned Pancakes Stack – with berries, honeycomb ice cream and maple syrup

The pancakes were as expected, fluffy and delicious although a little thinner than we’d hoped for. But they were delightful and well paired with berries and maple syrup (hard to go wrong with such a classic combination). What we really liked was that fat ball of melting honeycomb ice cream. If we didn’t have quite so many girls around the table and I was mindful of etiquette, I’d have grabbed that soup spoon of ice cream and dunked it into my mug of Graze mocha. Bet that would’ve tasted sublime.

Orange and Vanilla Waffles – with chocolate sauce and cut strawberries

Mmmm. Need I say more? And ahm, REALLY GOOD vanillla ice cream. My heart melted just a little at the sight of those specks of vanilla seeds. The ice cream was so rich I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d snuck some clotted cream into the mix.

And to end it all on a rosey-hued note, a glass of Libalis Rose Maetierra wine which was of a lovely shade I wanted it as a nail polish colour. Happy smiles all around, food bellies nicely concealed under roomy dresses or blouses and a slight reluctance to leave this beautifully light restaurant. As we stepped out into the street and hailed more taxis to take us to our next destination (yea a crew of fat ladies who lunch), I couldn’t help noticing this slightly lethargic but warm feeling in my belly. I realised that that was the sensation of peaceful contentment and a stomach goblin finally satiated.

Graze
No. 38 Martin Road
Singapore

http://www.graze.com.sg